On the other hand, we are an educational project. If academics have begun to refer to the shorter form (without ic) then we should let our readers know this. But education via redirect is not something I'd like to try. Better to place a usage note somewhere in the article.

By the way, more important than the spelling issue is how the little pictures correspond to sounds, along with the process by which modern scholars discovered that correspondence. Is the Rosetta Stone relevant here? --Ed PoorTalk 09:05, 26 March 2009 (EDT)

Pictograms

I don't know what a pictogram is, but it's curious that each glyph reminds me of an ordinary object or creature: a bird, a worm, a shepherd's crook, a candle. Readers need to be told whether these pictures are meant to represent the thing they depict, or whether they are simply letters in an alphabet.

For example,

Although many Egyptian hieroglyphs depict familiar things, the Egyptians used them simply as letters. This contrasts with Chinese, where each glyph is a word and the shape of a glyph often provides a hint of the word's meaning. (For example, the horse's hooves at the bottom of horse or the raindrops in rain).

Do you want to write the article this way, Krys? --Ed PoorTalk 07:39, 28 March 2009 (EDT)

I have tried to write the article so far an introduction to the the system for someone with no knowledge of Egyptian language and writing, but with a basic foundation knowledge of linguistic principles. I'm not sure about the system in the US, but under the UK system most O level (14-16yr old) students should have the basics in place regarding major linguistic concepts, which I've assumed to be the age we are writing for. I didn't want to go into un-neccessary explanation of basic points and make the article too large, as it has a lot of ground still to cover.

However, if you think more explantion is needed at the basic level I can add that, or perhaps split into "introductory" and "in-depth" articles, if we need to start right at square one. Let me know you thoughts on it, and I'm sure we can figure it out somehow. Take care :-)